


Sights and Sounds

by terfa



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terfa/pseuds/terfa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl falls into One Piece type of story, she has no idea what she's in for. Mild swearing and violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately I do not own One Piece

"GAARRRGHHGHG!"

As far as eloquent thoughts went, this expressed my feelings exactly - although perhaps not as articulately as I would have liked.

A glare at my backpack (that was quickly sent flying across the room) did nothing to calm me as I turned to lock the door.

_I can't BELIEVE he managed to lose my stupid write up! Does he KNOW how long it took me to do that stupid thing? No, of course not! Oh I know - I'll just set some work due in in three days time when he has a night shift at the Student Union and see how HE does. Okay maybe I had a week – but I was BUSY. He still shouldn't have lost it. Now I have to go to the stupid IT suite and reprint it, the computers are NEVER free there! Plus it means exercise! Stupid Welsh valleys with the stupid campuses on different stupid sides of the stupid things which are STEEP -_

A tentative knock on the door caused me to turn and glare at it.

After a moment I realised that the glare wouldn't solve anything, and that no, the door was not a 6 foot balding man that deserved to be pummelled to death. Stomping over to it, I grabbed the handle and yanked it open.

Well, I tried to; after my slightly deranged inner ramblings, I had forgotten that the door had been locked. This resulted in a rather impressive body slam where my forehead managed to have an intimate conversation with the door.

Mood improved with my wrestling impression, I unlocked the door and shot my super laser of death to the culprit behind all wrongs in the universe.

Standing in the hallway was one of my flatmates – Rachel. She was the only other female in the flat of 6 and this had sort of forced us together. Not that we wouldn't have become friends otherwise; Rachel was one of the friendliest people I had ever met and we had become pretty close. The four boys had also banded together and were currently situated in kitchen on the Xbox someone had brought down, so at the moment they were all pretty dead to the world. In our opinion, this was much better than how they usually were. The amount of MESS four boys can make in a smallish kitchen is unbelievable. We all got on with each other, but sometimes you just need the company of your own gender.

Rachel ran her hand through her (ridiculously) long black hair and stared at me with a bemused expression as I stood there rubbing my traitorous forehead.

"Do I want to know why a hurricane blew through your room and threw you to the door or will I regret it?"

Slightly bewildered, I replied, "What? I get the door bit, but -" I turned as I said this and realised that my room looked exactly as she had described. I'm not the most organised of people, so my room never looked neat or anything, but at that moment my room was an absolute mess. I must have been pacing and gesturing whilst ranting in my head, knocking some stuff to the floor. I tended to do that and was glad that my rant had at least been internal; they made me seem a bit crazed when I did it out loud. I turned back to her.

"Hey, you know I have to have easily accessible snacks!" This was in regard to the amount of crisps/sweets/chocolates scattered over the surfaces, but mostly on the floor. For some reason I find it really uncomfortable to sit in a chair for a long period of time; I much prefer to sit on the floor.

Tilting an eyebrow up at me as she surveyed what my body wasn't blocking, Rachel said, "So your books are on the floor because…?"

As soon as the word "book" was out of her mouth, I let out a gasp of horror and turned to see that most of my books had been knocked down and were now just dumped on the floor and across the shelf. Anyone who knew me knew that I loved my books with a slightly unholy passion. I liked them to be in pristine condition for as long as possible, and this meant that the ones which had been read a couple of times still looked new, with no creases in the spine or on the pages. You dog-ear one of my books and your life would be over. On the other hand, this did mean that the books that were creased and worn looking had been read to the point where I could probably quote whole chapters at you.

"Noooooooo, my babies!"

I ran to them and immediately started to inspect them and place them back into their rightful places as Rachel came into the room and sat on the bed, moving a newly bought six pack of crisps off of it and onto the floor.

"So why DID you run into the door?"

Exasperated, I said, "I didn't run into the door, it attacked me with a vengeance when I tried to open it. Plus, are you trying to imply something about my weight? And how come everything that you've said to me so far has been a question?"

"You forgot the door was locked again, didn't you?"

"ARRGHG, you're still doing it!"

"Haha whoops. Wish I could have said that that was on purpose though."

She smirked at me with a slightly evil expression as I flumped onto the bed next to her, still leaving quite a lot of stuff on the floor as I had only picked up the important stuff (the books). I took off my glasses and tucked my hair behind my ears, placing the glasses on the desk in front of me as I grabbed a conveniently placed KitKat. After offering her a piece, I took a bite and replied,

"Stupid lecturer's trying to make me do exercise."

Seeing Rachel furrow her brow in confusion, I sighed and continued.

"He lost my practical write up, so now I have to go print off another at the other campus and place it in the box."

At this, her face cleared with understanding and she smiled at me.

"Well a little exercise wouldn't do you any harm now would it? And no that was not a jab at your weight, there's nothing wrong with it."

I humphed at her and slumped against the wall, now sullenly eating the chocolate. It's not like I'm overweight or anything, I'm at average height and weight, it's just that I can't only have 3 solid meals a day; I snack throughout instead. I don't really have anything against exercise, I like to play sports and love doing outdoor activities, it's just that I am way too lazy for my own good, and taking the 20 minutes to walk up and down the steep hills to the other campus was going to be so much effort! Not to mention the walk back!

"That's easy for you to say, you have your lectures on THIS campus, you don't have to deal with the terror that is the hill of no return." I ended this with my arms flailing in the air and glared at her menacingly.

"Mhmm right, well as long as you're okay then. Don't forget that we're all off to the student union tonight." Getting up off my bed and heading to the door, she pointed back at me and said, "You ARE coming with and it WILL be fun. See you."

With that, she left my room and left me to stew on my bed in misery.

I HATED going out. Okay maybe that was a bit of a lie; I liked going out with my friends to drink and just mess about, I just didn't quite enjoy the party scene that Rachel tended to want to drag me into. Me + dancing = nopenopenopenope, plus the Student Union is on the other side of the valley (EFFORT). I also supposed that I would need to dress up. Sighing, I pulled my arse off of the bed and tried to find something decent to wear for later. If I didn't, Rachel was sure to come and try to force me into a skirt or dress. This made me shudder just thinking about it. Usually I'm a jeans, t-shirt and trainers person, maybe ¾ lengths if it's hot enough. Therefore my 'dressed up' state just consisted of skinny jeans and trainers with a nice top (insert odd looking grin here). Thusly prepared, I went into the kitchen and pizza'd myself up.


	2. Chapter 2

Later that night, our flat went down and crossed to the other campus to go to 'The Basement' and have a couple of drinks before we were dragged by Rachel to the dance floor in the room opposite. I have no idea how she managed to do it but all of the boys from our flat came. I deduced that she had either stolen the Xbox or it broke; there was no way that they willingly came to dance. Drink, maybe, but not dance, they just weren't those types of guys. Suffice it to say that the guys and I had to become sufficiently drunk before even thinking about getting onto the dance floor.

At first we sat at a table and did some shots and games, and I am ashamed to say that it didn't take me long at all to become completely and utterly drunk. I don't think that this was because I can't hold my drink, it was more that I get quite competitive and so don't really pace myself (plus the boys had stolen most of my pizza so I was nearly running on empty *grumble*). According to Rachel, as I was already this drunk, we all had to get dancing RIGHT THIS MINUTE ... Yeah, I think she had gotten quite drunk as well. Naturally this caused a lot of complaining and whining as a petite 19 year old commenced with dragging two guys and me to the other room while the other two lucky bastards managed to run away and hide in the corner of the room, nursing their drinks. There was then a lot of thrashing about and I was drunk enough to actually enjoy my version of 'dancing'.

During one of our breaks, we realised that two of our number were missing and we decided to go find them. This led to another round of drinking games where we managed to rope in a bunch of random people to play as well. It was during one of these games that I realised that someone had spiked one of my drinks.

Of course, I didn't realise it at first; I was too drunk to really notice anything unless it was dancing in front of my face. The first thing that actually made me stop and think was that every single light and sound in the room suddenly became way too bright/loud, making me flinch and fall off my chair. This didn't really alarm anyone, I mean come on, we had all just been and still were drinking a ridiculous amount of alcohol. Despite this thought muddling through my brain, I realised that I couldn't actually feel anything except for a dizzying, nauseous pounding in my head. Looking down to aid myself in getting up, I realised that I had managed to get a cut on my hand as I had fallen. It was fairly deep, probably from a smashed glass, and was oozing a copious amount of blood all over the palm of my hand. The sensory overload and deprivation along with my head feeling like it was likely to explode made me hurry to my feet. I attempted to quickly make my way to Rachel who was only two seats away when I knocked into someone and we both tripped and fell. They promptly pushed me and stood up with a huff, walking off. I looked up to see Rachel standing and laughing at me. When she realised that I wasn't laughing with her and that it was taking far too long for me to get up, even for a drunk, she gave me her hand and helped me to my feet.

"Hey are you okay? You don't look too good"

"Some...my drink...spiked." Each word sent sharp spikes of pain directly into my brain. It felt like someone was trying to nail a pole into it.

As soon as the last word left my lips, her attitude seemed to do a complete 180 and she stared angrily at the people standing around us, even though it didn't seem like anyone was paying us any attention. Grabbing our coats, she took a firmer grip on the hand that she was holding and lead me to the exit, "We're leaving, and I'm going to get you into bed before some bastard comes to try and do anything. If they do I'll shove ... handy ... TON ARSE!"

I left her to her death threats, which were getting increasingly more disturbing and multilingual, as we paced (stumbled) down the pavement outside. Every car that went past brought a razor mesh through my brain with their noise, and seared my eyes so badly that I was reduced to holding my injured hand across them to try and reduce the amount of light getting into my brain. The numbness was somehow getting stronger; my limbs felt like they couldn't move anymore. I could tell that Rachel was having problems with trying to get me to walk with her, because I could hear her trying to encourage me, though her words were grating against my brain.

Suddenly, she let out a scream and I was pushed to the floor. Shocked, I opened my eyes to see that someone had grabbed her and she was currently giving them hell about it. At seeing this I grew furious.

_GREAT! Not only was my drink SPIKED, but now my FRIEND is getting ATTACKED and I can't do ANYTHING because I am lying on the ground STARING at her fighting like the MORON I_ _**AM** _ _!_

My furious rant at myself not only worsened my pounding head but also gave me the drive to move my ridiculously uncooperative body, and I ended up diving at the only part of her attacker that I could reach – his knees. As he fell, I realised that I had somehow managed to dive past him on the way and that he was now falling towards me. As he fell I saw something flash brightly, and as another screaming car went past he landed on me, I lost my breath and shut my eyes against the bright flash then felt a weird loose sensation across my arms. Puzzled I opened my eyes again to see him sitting up with something in his hand.

_Oh, it's a knife_.

_Yup, that's it, I am a genius._

_CRAP!_

With the realisation of the STUPID thing I had just done, even though it had probably saved my friend's life, I stared up in horror as the attacker brought the knife to slash over and over, so I raised my arms in a feeble attempt to block; even so the loose sensation in my numb arms was repeated too many times for comfort until a foot came out of nowhere and knocked him off me with a blow to his head. With his weight off me, I hoisted myself up and drew in long coughing breaths as I tried to get air back into my deprived body. As I sat up, I noticed that the piercing wail that had been rampaging through my mind had stopped. Looking to my right I figured that the noise had been Rachel, who was now standing, shocked, with her mouth still open, horrified that she had just attacked the crazy guy with a knife.

_Huh, I wonder if that was what MY face looked like when I atta-WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!_

Stumbling into an upright position I fumbled towards her, my limbs still not obeying me, trying to get her to run. Despite the shards of glass ramming into my brain I yelled, "RACHEL SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT"!

She turned towards me, understanding dawning on her face that we were but five minutes from a rather large group of people who could help us. We both started to run; I was somehow keeping up even though my legs felt like useless pieces of wood. Looking down, all I could see was a mass of red lines. As my stomach rebelled along with my head at the sight and attempt to do more than one thing at once, I heard rapid footsteps from behind. We both glanced back and saw him gaining on us. Letting out a scream, we both gave a push of energy in order to escape. Next thing I knew, Rachel had tripped and was on the ground. Without even thinking about it I turned and tackled the guy as yet another bright flash descended towards me.

It hurt. It was hard to breathe.

It was strange; we were still falling but everything was going so slowly. I saw Rachel staring at me with horror in her eyes, and her mouth yet again wide open. I saw that I had a death grip on the guy who was holding his knife arm out to the side. I saw another screaming machine come roaring round the bend.

Reality hammered into me, and despite the fuzziness caused by whatever had been in my drink, I suddenly understood.

_His arm is there because he cut me again. It hurts because the numbness hadn't spread there yet. Breathing ... he cut my throat? That's a car._

The car hit us, and I felt the sensation of flying. A light flared in my already pain filled eyes, causing me to shut them. The flying sensation stopped. The pain in my head skyrocketed.

_We must have hit the ground. Hmm-wait WHY AM I SO CALM! That guy is SO_ _ DEAD! _

I tried to sit up, I needed to get away, but my limbs weren't working anymore.

_Great timing mister whatever-it-was-that-was-in-my-drink ... least nothing hurts now ... there aren't even any stabby lights._


	3. Chapter 3

The sea was calm, but this did nothing to improve the mood of one man who was currently sailing on it. His name was Dracule 'Hawk-Eyes' Mihawk, and he was bored. He was currently in East Blue and couldn't believe that fact. It was well known that this sea was the weakest of all the seas, but he had still been sent here to do an ERRAND for the marines as one of the Shichibukai, one of the seven pirates that worked for the marines. Admittedly, he had accepted because of boredom, but he hadn't expected it to be done that quickly, he had thought that East Blue hadn't been that week. The anticipation and let down had left him in an even fouler mood. So he was now sailing back to the Grand Line where he was looking forward to maybe going against someone who would take more time… or maybe having a nap? He pondered this as an island came into sight and he decided to moor at one of the beaches there for the night. His small coffin boat with its large central cross-shaped mast and single seat was not a very comfortable place to sleep.

He was maybe 100 meters from the beach when something interesting happened. A girl came falling down at high speed from the cloudless sky, and hit the prow of his boat.

Mihawk was a very serious man; he liked to think that he was an imposing figure and therefore worthy of respect, never mind that he bore the title of Shichibukai. So when this happened, he would very much like to have said that his reflexes borne from being a master swordsman saved him from something as embarrassing as being flung into the ocean. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The utter randomness of a girl falling from the sky was something generally associated with the Grand Line, not the weak sea East Blue, so he had let his defences grow lax, or that is what he was telling himself anyway. He silently berated himself for doing such a stupid thing whilst thanking all and any gods out there that there had not been anyone around to see his shameful performance. Jumping back onto his boat, he dragged the girl fully onto it and took a closer look at her.

The first thing he noticed was that it looked like she had been in a swor-no, knife fight. She had many deep cuts on the outsides of both her arms, as well as a jagged slash across her throat. Her body was almost saturated in blood; it dripped off her short brown hair and strange clothing. Disappointed by the throat wound, he knelt down next to her to feel for signs of life, not really expecting any. So when he felt the faint pulse of her heartbeat he was amazed.

_Well this might be interesting. It'll kill time at least._

With that thought, he hurriedly wrapped her wounds and urged his boat to reach the island as quickly as possible. As a master swordsman, he knew the types of wounds a blade could inflict, so he also had the rudimentary knowledge on how to treat someone with knife wounds. After mooring his boat, he quickly carried the girl near to the tree line past the large beach and began his attempt to save her life.


	4. Chapter 4

It – hurt – EVERYWHERE!

There were deep lanes of fire going through several places on the backs of my arms, with the hottest and most painful one at my throat. As I drew in a breath, my throat felt raw and was being grated by the air whilst it fanned the flame there. It also felt like my ribs were going to splinter into my lungs – I was not about to try talking anytime soon. Aside from the ribs, my whole torso felt like it was a bruised mass, with my back aching more than the front. My head throbbed in time to my heart, with each pulse bringing on a wave of pain.

For several minutes I just lay there, breathing and trying to accept the pain that I was in in order to attempt to open my eyes. As I did this, I realised that there were several sounds that didn't make sense. I could hear the roaring of a bonfire over the calls of several wild animals. A sudden loud crash of water made me jump, bringing on a sharp wave of pain from the sudden muscle movement. There was the rustle of movement through plants by what sounded like many different animals. In the background I could a very faint murmur of voices. Another crash of water came, making me jump again, and forcing me to open my eyes in the new wave of agony.

The first thing that I saw were the stars – I wasn't inside? I couldn't stop staring at them; there were just so many, and they all seemed to be so much sharper. For a minute they let me forget about my pain. Another crash of water made me attempt to move my head to see what was making the noise. After a fresh wave of pain I aborted the attempt and instead drew my eyes to the left as another crash made me jump yet again. What I saw made no sense.

I saw that the sounds must be the waves crashing against a lovely beach, but it made no sense because the sounds were much too loud. It looked like the tide had gone out, leaving a large expanse of sand in between me and the sea, yet I could hear the crash of waves almost as if I was standing next to it. My eyes were then drawn to the beach as I tried to puzzle this out. What I saw made my head pound with a vengeance.

When looking at something, you usually see the whole picture, unless you focus your eyes on a part of that whole. As I looked at the sand, each individual grain was perfectly focused. I could see each bump and plane that made the grains an individual. The problem was that this was true for every grain within my eyesight. This overload of information along with the general information of the beach (such as the boat sitting on it as well as the seaweed and an odd shaped log with several cracks and a boot (?) in it) seemed to rush into my brain in the brief period it took to move my eyes from the sea to the beach.

I shut my eyes in an attempt to stop the sensory overload and lay there for a while as the headache was reduced to its previous level.

_What the hell? So I'm on a beach? Why am I not in a hospital? Where's that car that hit me? And that man! Oh my god, was I kidnapped by him? I hope Rachel got away okay, I can't remember what happened after the car hit. Wait, how come the guy didn't black out and could kidnap me? I swear he was between me and the car. Urgh, I hope the effects of that drug go away soon. It's great that I can feel again, but my eyes and hearing could do with being normal. Looking at the beach was so not a good id-wait, I could see stars ... and the sea is ridiculously far away ... how the HELL could I have seen all that if it's_ _ NIGHT? _

I opened my eyes and looked at the stars again to reaffirm what I had guessed.

_Yup, it's night. Drugs don't normally do that, do they?_

An explosive crack from the bonfire made me turn my head to the right, bringing tears to my eyes as the pounding increased. Having my eyes open did not help as the small camp fire which was less than a meter away stabbed into them and brought out more tears, causing me to shut them almost immediately.

_Okay that was weird… and my hearing is messed up as well._

What I had thought to be a roaring bonfire was actually a rather modestly sized camp fire. To begin with, I had thought that the light from the fire was what had caused my reaction. As I puzzled this over, I understood that that actually wasn't the case. The light level was normal for a fire even though I could suddenly see extremely well in the dark; the thing that had caused me to shut my eyes was that there had yet again been way too much information reaching me. Though it hadn't caused a headache this time, I had seen and registered the light of the fire, as well as the movements of each individual tongue which had in turn been made up of tiny tongues which were wrapped around each other.

_I never knew fire looked like that, that was actually quite cool. I'm happy that I didn't get a massive headache, maybe I'm getting used to it?_

With this in mind, I decided to learn more about where the hell I was. After ignoring the painful signals that I was receiving, I moved into a sitting position and saw that almost my entire body had been wrapped in bandages. The only things that weren't wrapped were my legs, face and right hand. Looking around I found out that I could leave my eyes open for around one minute at a time before the overload induced headache would start to come back.

I was lying at the edge of a forest which was (according to my idiotic super ears) teeming with all sorts of wildlife and, judging by the growls and screams that I heard, not all of them were friendly. Every sound that I heard from the forest had seemed to be coming from right next to me or closer if I had been judging by what my hearing was normally like. I had also seen that I was lying on one of two bed rolls and the other one had a bag, black plumed hat and massive sword on it. It looked like it could very easily pass my height of five foot seven. Next to me was a cup and some firewood.

Looking into the cup, I found that it was filled with water and immediately downed it, soothing the fire in my throat a bit. As I put the cup back down, I heard growling coming from right in front of me. Attributing this to my odd hearing, I figured that it was coming from the forest, but the odd thing was that it had suddenly stopped, and I could hear footsteps coming towards the camp from that area. This naturally made me panic a bit as it was the first human sound I had heard, so I grabbed a piece of firewood to 'arm' myself with. I shut my eyes for a couple of seconds (so that I could 'reset' my eyes as it were) then opened them again and kept my attention on the footsteps that were coming closer and closer to the camp. When the man came out of the forest I panicked a bit and threw my piece of wood at him, air grating against my throat as I gasped in silence.

In my opinion, my reaction was completely reasonable. During the time I had spent surveying the forest, I had noticed how far away the animals were and compared it to how loud they had seemed, so that I had a kind of scale to measure my changed hearing against. So when the quiet footsteps had started coming towards the camp, I had thought that the person they had belonged to was still quite far away. So when he suddenly appeared it had given me quite a start. Plus, he seemed to be carrying a tiger on his back.

_Okay that is_ _ not _ _the guy who attacked me and Rachel… and how the HELL is he carrying that massive tiger on his shoulder with just one arm? He must have been walking really quietly for me to have just heard his footsteps like they were normal ones, unless my hearing has gone back to normal?_

A sudden bird cry disproved that thought.

As I was thinking, the guy had managed to catch the piece of firewood and he looked at me. That was when my eyes did that thing again, and I registered everything in a fraction of a second. I first saw the general picture. The guy had light purple trousers which were tucked into his black boots and held up by a decorated belt. The darkish red/purple shirt he had on was open with a black vest on top, showing off the fact that he had a well toned chest and abs. There was a necklace with a cross on it around his neck and he was also wearing a cape. His face looked stern, with black hair and sideburns that flicked up, and he also had a short black beard and moustache. His eyes were gold, and reminded me of a bird of prey. Then I saw the pieces of the whole.

When he had reached up to catch the piece of wood, my eyes registered the movement of his muscles. In this I mean that I saw his arm move, and could see the tiny details that made this happen. It was just like when I saw the individual grains of sand and the tiny wrapped tongues of flame; I could see the microscopic signs that showed the muscles, ligaments and tendons moving, as well as the miniscule shift of weight to compensate for a raised arm. I observed the way his whole body compensated for just that one movement of just raising his arm. I could see all this happening and could somehow completely understand how this all came together to allow him do that one action. I also understood that these signs had always there, but my enhanced eyesight just managed to catch and process all the information for me.

_Wow, now that's pretty cool. And I thought that Human Anatomy course was boring. Seeing it all happen with my drugged out eyes is pretty amazing._

As soon as he had caught the dangerous projectile that I had thrown at his face, he'd stopped walking and now just stood there, not five metres away from me, staring. As he stood there, I noticed that even though I normally would have said that he was standing perfectly still, his body was constantly moving, my eyes still seeing the smallest movements that showed his muscles working in all the tiniest ways to hold him up. This did nothing to distract me from the fact that a strange man with the most astonishing eyes I had ever seen who was carrying a TIGER on his back now stood there staring at me with a mild look of surprise on his face.

For a moment we did nothing but sit/stand still and stare. I mean, who wouldn't? Tall guy who wasn't the attacker, tiger, random beach, gold eyes, open shirt, sudden insight into the way the human body moves...

_This is all getting a bit ridiculous._

A sudden rockslide moving through my brain made me forget all about that as I gasped, closing my eyes whilst covering them with my hands, hunching over slightly. I hadn't noticed the creeping headache caused by my new sight as we had had our silent staring contest. By the time I looked up, having gotten over the fresh wave of pain, he was sitting next to the fire with the tiger lying next to him. He was still staring at me.


	5. Chapter 5

Still ... staring...

I don’t know about you, but after being silently stared at by a man who may or may not wish any goodwill towards me, I personally got a tad uncomfortable. Wracking my brain for something neutral to say, I settled on thanking him. I mean, he’s here at a camp that shows signs of only one other person being based here and I’ve received treatment; it’s a safe bet to say that he had helped me, no?

Bracing myself against the pain that I anticipated speaking would bring, I took a breath and ... nothing.

There was the familiar movement of air through my throat (I could definitely feel that, the sandpaper feeling kindly pointed this out) yet when I shaped my lips to speak, not a sound came out. I moved my hands up to caress my throat. The silence increased.

“Oh. I was afraid of that.”

When he spoke, I couldn’t help but jump a little, as I wasn’t as used to the odd effects the drug had had on my hearing as I was with my eyes, and though he spoke softly, his voice seemed to ring with authority and still seemed unnaturally loud in my ears.

When a moment passed and I realised that he really was going to just leave it at that, I frowned and furrowed my eyebrows at him. He understood what I wanted.

“The slash that you received across your throat was a fatal one. If I did not understand blades as much, found you when I had, nor lived the way I have then I doubt you would be here at this moment. I managed to halt the bleeding and treat you, but I am no doctor. It seems that your voice box has also been damaged. I do not know if it will heal, but unfortunately I feel that it would be highly unlikely for it to do so.”

I had no idea what my feelings were at this point. Everything seemed to be pressing down on me. Closing my eyes, I moved my head down and rested it in my hands as I moved so that I was sitting with my knees up in a ball.

_Waitwaitwait, so this guy just randomly finds me and knows how to heal up someone who’s had their throat cut? That can’t be right! For one thing my university is nowhere near the coast so how the hell did he ‘find’ me here? The second is that random people don’t usually know how to heal someone who is as close to death as I am sure I was. Also, what is with the tiger? It can’t be that he managed to kill it with his bare hands. I didn’t hear a gunshot and I’m sure he didn’t just find it ... Where the hell AM I?_

I sat back up to find that the man had moved away from me slightly and was in the process of butchering the tiger and placing pieces on spits over the fire. I saw that he had noticed me sitting back up and attempted again to thank him. I gestured to my wounds and, placing my hands together, bowed to him. I felt slightly ridiculous but that went away somewhat when he nodded back at me and smiled slightly. I frowned to myself.

_Woah, if my eyesight wasn’t playing up then I definitely wouldn’t have been able to see that. This guy seems way too serious for his own good. Hmm, this is going to be embarrassing..._

With that thought in mind I tried to start a conversation with him. I needed to know where I was. Seeing that he was still looking at me I waved my hands at the area around us and gave a shrug, while at the same time giving him a questioning look and pointing at him and me. I was extremely relieved when he understood.

“We are currently on an island in East Blue, I do not know which; this is the first time I have been here and have not yet met with any of the locals. I was heading here to spend the night when you landed on my ship after falling from the sky. I had just finished with some errands when this happened, and you interest me. We have been here for four days since.”

As he was speaking I had grown more and more confused with what he was saying. I was concerned about the fact that I had been out for four days, but was more concerned with the other things he had mentioned.

_I fell ... from the sky? It doesn’t feel like he was lying to me… plus, there is a boat on the beach which would confirm that he sailed here. But East Blue? I know that I’ve never been any good at geography, but where the hell is that? I’m sure that there isn’t a place with that name._

Too confused and more than slightly scared by the scant amount of information at my disposal, I gave up my game of charades and mouthed at him “ _What?!”_

He looked at me in confusion. As my fear steadily increased I started to rant aloud, though not a sound escaped.

“ _What do you mean I fell from the sky? And where the hell is East Blue? There is no place that has a name like that. And I interest you? What do you mean by that? I was hit by a car after being attacked by some random guy in the middle of Wales so sorry if I don’t believe you. , mean I am grateful that you saved my life and everything, but you can understand that I am worried when I wake up on some random island after four days and find a guy walking around with a TIGER on their shoulder like it’s an EVERYDAY occurrence then find out that I can’t TALK and said guy says that I interest him. Do you even know how creepy that sounds?”_

As my rant drew to a close, I deduced by the expression on his face that he could lip read, and was as confused by what I had said as I had been with his earlier reply.

“I am sorry if I have come across as ... creepy ... it is merely that a girl falling from the sky is not a usual sight and it perked my interest, especially when I saw your wounds and how much blood you had lost but were still alive. If you had been attacked in the middle of the city then I understand your confusion, but how is it that you don’t recognise the name of this sea? Surely you know the names of one of the four? And, if you don’t mind me asking, where is Wales, and what is a car?”

_What?_

I just went back to staring at him. I found this all to be a bit too confusing. His expression when I had said that I didn’t know where East Blue was was the same as mine when he had asked about Wales.

_Where AM I?!_

After realising that I was busy spacing out, he turned his attention back to the meat that was cooking. Handing a piece over to me, I accepted it absentmindedly, closing my eyes after a moment to rest them. We had both started eating when my ears picked up a sudden increase in noise from the forest. To begin with I thought nothing of it, dismissing it as it was still faint and so was pretty far away. I was halfway through my meat when I noticed that the sound was increasing and seemed to be travelling in the direction of the camp. I opened my eyes and turned my head to the direction that it was coming from. This drew the attention of the man, and his eyes flicked from me to the direction that I was staring. I couldn’t see anything yet, and after a moment recognised the sound as many feet running.

_Oh my god, I think it’s a stampede._

I turned back to the guy sitting with me. He gave me a questioning look as I mouthed ‘stampede’ at him. He looked back at the forest for a moment then turned to me with a slightly confused expression and just went back to eating. A bit annoyed with him, I picked up another piece of firewood and threw it at him. He managed to catch it this time as well and when he turned to look at me again I shivered.

_Okay, note to self, no more throwing pieces of wood at a man who can kill with a look. Those eyes just make it worse as well._

I mouthed at him, _“There’s a stampede coming in this direction, we need to move.”_

His glare reduced a bit as he looked again towards the forest before turning back to his meal.

“I neither hear nor feel anything. I am sure that everything is fine. It may be that you are still slightly concussed. Perhaps you should rest again after eating.”

Frustrated, I started to try and get up, attempting to move myself to a safe area before being trampled by a herd of angry animals. I say that I attempted to do so as my body felt extremely weak. After a moment I gave up and got extremely worried. I waved my arms to get his attention.

_“Trust me we need to move! Or do you want to be trampled?”_

He was starting to look annoyed, “It is nothing. You nee-”, he suddenly broke off and turned to the forest. When he turned back to me he was looking slightly incredulous. I understood that he could FINALLY hear the animals and grinned at him in a look of triumph that quickly turned to shock when all he did was turn and stand up facing the forest, taking out a small dagger from what I had thought was just a necklace.

_Err, is he really going to try and face a stampede of animals with just a tiny dagger? That’s CRAZY!_

As I couldn’t speak or move, I started to wave my arms about in order to try and get his attention (I was not going to throw another piece of firewood at him… I enjoyed living). That was when the group of boars ran out from the tree line and headed almost for him. All I could do was sit in disbelief as the man quickly gave each of the boars one slash of the dagger before they all collapsed to the ground. He then grabbed all of the bodies and started hauling them into back into the trees, disposing them quite far into the forest.

_This man, how – he the – what ... fast._

I couldn’t comprehend what I had just seen. As soon as the animals had exited the woods, I had received a burst of adrenaline in fear (what, it was scary) which had caused an increase in all of my senses. The thing that had left me speechless was what I had seen with my adrenaline enhanced drugged out eyes.

When he had seen the animals, he moved. He moved at such a speed that when compared to the boars it seemed as though they were at a snail’s pace. He had then proceeded to slide his dagger into each animal directly to the heart before moving to the next. As before, I could see what moved and understood why they did to allow him each of his movements. What was amazing was that nothing any part of his body did was a wasted movement. It seemed relaxed and directed at the same time. I knew nothing about fighting but knew that this was a man who must be one of the best. This, coupled with the extreme speed with which he did everything, was nothing short of amazing. If my eyes had not been enhanced further by the adrenaline, then I doubt that I could have seen him as clearly as I had.

“Who are you?” He had returned and now stood on the far side of the fire, his hawk-like eyes piercingly glaring.

I flinched. From our previous conversations, I had gotten used to his style of speaking. He had been clear and concise yet slightly intimidating. Now, he was hostile. If I had thought that his glare had been frightening, that had nothing to his voice now.

_“W-what do you mean?”_

“You are not fooling anyone. How did you hear them coming when I heard nothing? You managed to keep pace with me as I was fighting, I could see you watching me; I have no doubt that you had no trouble doing so. No nameless girl should be able to do this. What is your name?”

The level of hostility coming off him was stifling.

“ _M-my name is Kath. Before I was attacked I got drugged and my sight and hearing grew, that’s why I could do those things.”_

“That does not explain anything. I doubt that any of that drug is still in your system; it has been four days since you were dosed and I highly doubt that the effects have lingered that long to the extent that you can keep track of me. If you do not explain then I may force you to do so.”

The hostility was coming off of him in waves. With that said, he dashed towards me, causing my adrenaline level to spike and I somehow found myself on my feet as he reached me. He moved as if to place his dagger on my throat and my fear skyrocketed as I remembered being attacked. My body seemed to react on its own as the information given to me by my eyes was used and my fingers jabbed into his shoulder, at a point where all his movements for his arm originated. Both of our eyes widened as his arm went slack and he dropped the dagger. In my shock, I couldn’t react as I was suddenly on my back with his other arm across my throat. I lifted my hands to it in an effort to escape. That was when I saw his face and went white and still in fear.

“That just furthers my point. Who are you and why are you here? How did you come to be falling from the sky? Explain now, or I will kill you”

I had no idea what was wrong with me as all my fear abruptly did an about turn and changed into anger. I glared up at him.

_“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?! I already told you what happened to me, that was all TRUE! Plus what do you mean that I ‘furthered your point’? Are you some big shot that me disarming you is THAT big of a deal? I’m just as confused as you are; it’s not my fault that I fell on your boat, I don’t even know how THAT came to happen. I just woke up and all this crazy stuff was happening. I don’t know how to get home OR where I am, and now I’m being threatened for stuff I don’t know how to explain!”_

As soon as I finished, I realised that it might not have been a good idea to be silently yelling at someone who has you pinned and is threatening to kill you. My glare withered as I caught up to what I had just said and I inexplicably started to tear up. As I watched, his expression started to become more puzzled than angry and he moved his arm away from my throat, reclaiming his previous seat by the fire. I sat up and wiped the tears away before they could fall, and looking back up I could see that he had fallen back to his previous habit of staring at me.

“ _So, what now? You’re not going to kill me?”_

There was a pause as he seemed to think this over. I cursed at myself for asking such a stupid thing.

“No.”

_What. So that’s all he’s going to say after attacking me and threatening my life? He’s just going to sit there and stare at me?_

_“Why? Why do you believe me now?”_

“It is because of several reasons, but mainly it is because, though your skills would usually be due to someone who is skilled at fighting, you do not seem to be a fighter, as shown by your shock at disarming me. The anger and sincerity of what you told me also convinced me. I do believe that you do not come from here, as everyone but small children know about the seas in which we live, at least in general, and I have never heard of a place called ‘Wales’ or things like ‘cars’. It seems that I must also apologise for my behaviour. When you disarmed me I was shocked and acted rashly as that has not happened for a very long time.”

_“Oh so your reaction to dropping your dagger is to kill someone? What on earth is wrong with you?”_

He sweat dropped.

“This also gives credibility to the fact that you are not from here. At the risk of sounding big headed, I must say that I am a master swordsman and a well known Shichibukai.”

“ _Oh, hmm_... _So what is your name, seeing as I have given you mine?”_

“...Dracule Mihawk. … You do not know what a Shichibukai is, do you?”

** ~small time skip~ **

As I lay back in the bedroll, I thought over the conversation that I and Mihawk had had after the attempt on my life. For some reason, the attempt had bridged the silence and awkwardness that had been present before. … There must be something wrong with us. I had explained further about the circumstances that had lead to me being there and Mihawk explained where I was and just why he was surprised that I hadn’t known that he was famous. To say that I was feeling confused would have been a massive understatement. From what I gathered, it seemed like I was in another world entirely. Mihawk did not recognise any of the continents or countries that I named, and he said that he had travelled over most of the world. He also didn’t recognise any technology that I mouthed and I had needed to write it down in the soil before he then asked for an explanation as to what they even were. The conversation had ended when I had tried to explain our galaxy, leading to confused looks on Mihawk’s part and me becoming more distraught.

_Where am I? Am I even going to be able to get home?_

My eyes teared up again and I hastily wiped them. Turning over I closed my eyes and went to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

When I woke up, my thoughts of the bizarre happenings being just a dream were dashed as over-loud sounds rushed into my head. It had taken a while for me to sleep due to my oversensitive hearing, but I had managed in the end by wrapping a spare bandage around my head. It hadn't cancelled out the noise, but reduced it to a bearable level for sleeping. On waking, I also had the added bonus of not having a pounding headache, cheering my mood up immensely. Stretching, I sat up and opened my eyes. To begin with, I was extremely confused. It felt like there was a slight fog over everything, but I could still see into the distance.

_Oh! Maybe the drug is finally starting to wear off. But wait ... I'm still hearing sounds way too loud, even with a bandage over... my ears ... yeah...I'm an idiot._

I just started silently laughing, not believing that I hadn't even noticed and amazed again over my eyes. When I had tied the bandage around my head to muffle the sounds, it had inevitably been tied around my eyes as well. Taking the opportunity to look around, I noticed the differences the bandage brought to my sight.

I could no longer see things in overwhelming detail, but could still see further than normal and noticed movement a lot easier as well. As Mihawk came out from the trees I moved my head to watch him. With the bandage, I couldn't see the subtle signs of his individual tendons etc. any more, though I could still see tiny movements just underneath the skin. Mihawk noticed my turn to look at him and took note of the smile still on my face.

"What is it?"

" _Oh it's nothing, I just forgot that I had the bandage on and was laughing at myself"_

At this his face turned to surprise, "You can still see with that on? What prompted you to put it on in the first place?"

" _My sensitive hearing was giving me trouble when I was trying to sleep, so I tied it on. And yeah, I didn't expect to be able to see either. I can't see in as much detail as before, but it's still better than normal."_

Still slightly surprised, he turned and gave me another piece of meat for breakfast. After we had both finished, he said that he needed to change the bandages and that I might as well get clean as I was now awake. Mihawk then helped me up and lead me to a small pool just past the tree line. My body still felt quite weak, but the walk wasn't bad at all and I managed it without any problems. After lifting one side of the bandage, I heard that Mihawk had headed back to the camp. Leaving that side of the bandage folded up, I then proceeded to undress and unwrap, gasping as I slid into the shallow pool.

_This is FREEZING!_

With this astute observation out of the way, I scrubbed as fast as I could in an effort to get clean quickly, and gain back some warmth taken by the freezing water. When I had finished and had my clothes back on, I lowered the bandage to cover my ear again (for comforts sake), and inspected the gashes on my arms.

The backs of both my forearms were covered in slashes, some of them were crossed by others and only a few on each were without stitches holding them shut. They were a mess, but to my untrained eye looked to be healing ok, the ones without stitches already sealed and were scarring over, the ones that had stitches also looked to be closed but were still pretty red. Finished with my arms, I leant over the pool to look at the wound at my throat. I saw that it was a fairly long diagonal cut; it went from just above my right collarbone to the far left side of my neck, stopping just under my jaw and running through the centre of my throat; it was also held shut by a mass of stitches and had an ugly red colour. I continued staring for a while before sitting back and taking the bandage off to run my fingers through my hair.

_Woah. That along with the bandage on my eyes makes me look like someone out of a horror movie. Like one of those guys an evil mad scientist had experimented on._

After retying the bandage on top of my hair to keep it in place, I headed back to the camp. I arrived and saw that everything had been packed and Mihawk had his massive sword strapped to his back. Before I could say anything, he headed over to me, "Let me look at your wounds."

After looking over my arms, he claimed that they were healed enough for most of them to have the stitches taken out. It hurt. I was not looking forward to getting the ones in my throat out. When he had finished, only a couple cuts on each arm still had stitches in and I was told that I would not need to re-bandage anything, but to remember to get the stitches on my arm out in a few days. He then moved onto my throat. To my immense relief I was told that the stitches were not coming out right then, but that I should get a professional to look over it as soon as I could. That coupled with the state of the camp made me look questioningly at him.

"As you know, I am a pirate, a Shichibukai, in the service of the Marines, I have duties to perform and should be getting back to the Grand Line. You are awake and sufficiently healed. My interest in you has also been satisfied. You should also be adequately informed of this worlds workings and so should be fine; it is not as if I am responsible for you. There should be a village somewhere on this island."

Throughout his speech, Mihawk had been clinical and distant, making me feel more and more lost as each word passed his lips. I couldn't help but feel that my only link in this random world that made no sense was abandoning me.

_Oh, well I guess I am a bit of a burden; I did literally drop on him out of nowhere. I should be happy he stayed long enough to heal me. It's not like I wanted to go sailing with him; that Grand Line place sounds like something out of a nightmare. But how am I meant to find my way back, or survive to even do that?_

There was a brief pause where I saw his face relax a bit, I think he knew the impact his words were having on me.

"This is not to say that I did not enjoy the brief time we had together Kath. It is just that my responsibilities are calling and I am a dangerous man to be around. It would be better for you to find others who can help, as it would be extremely unwise for a non-fighter like yourself to go sailing with me. From what I could tell, you are bright and capable, I am sure that you can handle yourself. It was a pleasure meeting you Kath; if you ever set sail onto Grand Line then I hope we meet again."

By the end of this, Mihawk was smiling very slightly. He was obviously trying to make me feel better and that cheered me, though I still felt a bit panicked that I was going to be left alone. I walked with him as he went to his ship and started to set sail. Just before getting on though, he reached into a pocket and threw to me a small bag as well as a pouch. Catching them, I looked inside the pouch to see that it was filled with what I had been told to be this world's currency. By the looks of it, it was also quite a lot. It hit me all of a sudden that as well as saving my life by healing me, he was also doing it by preparing me for the world and also by leaving, even if it felt like I was being abandoned. He had become a friend in the brief time that we had known each other.

Unexpectedly overcome with all that Mihawk had done and was still doing, I started to tear up. Smiling, I suddenly crossed the meter gap between us and hugged the stoic man. Stepping back, slightly embarrassed, I looked up to see that he had a shocked look on his face. It was such a visible emotion that I couldn't help but start to silently chuckle at him.

" _Mihawk, I can't say how thankful I am that you found me and saved my life. You have done so much when you didn't need to. I know that you only did it because I 'interested' you, but still, thank you. Thanks a lot."_

I grinned at him again.

" _I still think that's creepy by the way"_

By the end of this, Mihawk had overcome his shock and was also doing that imperceptible smile of his.

"I have to say it again, it was interesting meeting you. Good bye Kath."

With that he turned and got on his ship, pushing off and setting sail. As he grew further and further away, I couldn't help it, I started to cry. All my emotions just suddenly caught up to me and I was overwhelmed. The fact that I was on some random island on my own, fending for myself, in a world I still didn't really understand, it was just all freaking me out a bit. Especially when piled onto the fact that the person who could have helped was now gone. I had no idea where to even begin finding how to get back, or if that was possible. After a while of just sitting on the sand crying, I started to get a bit fed up with myself.

_Okay, so what if Mihawk left? I'm 19 for god's sake, I know how to look after myself, I've been doing that for the past year at university. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER ME! Right! I can take care of myself no problem. I can do this._

Standing up, I moved the bandage up from my eyes and wiped them before moving them back down. Taking a deep breath, I turned away from the sea and started walking inland to find the village Mihawk had mentioned.

* * *

After five minutes of walking in the wrong direction, I was feeling like a bit of an idiot. To begin with I hadn't been thinking at all and just picked a random direction to walk in. After a while I had thought that maybe I should have thought over the direction to walk in, as I remembered the night before when I had heard the murmur of voices. I hadn't been able to hear anything so had lifted the bandage from my ears and actively tried to listen for a village, having resigned myself to the fact that the drugs seemed to have permanently enhanced my hearing and sight. That was when I noticed the sounds of people coming from almost the completely opposite direction to the one I was walking in, making me sigh and turn around, pulling the bandage back down.

As I was walking, I looked inside the bag that Mihawk had given me. It had some pretty general stuff: some first aid things, a container of water, a dagger, the money he'd given me and some dried food. I tucked the dagger under my shirt at the back, using my trousers to keep it in place, happy that Mihawk had given me something to help defend myself. I had been walking for about half an hour, munching on some of the food, when the village sounds started to get a bit overwhelming. It was just so noisy. I had been able to see the village for a few minutes, it wasn't that far away now maybe 500m, and yet I could hear doors closing, people talking and the clinking of cutlery! I took out the bandages from my bag and cut off a section to tie another layer around my head. This took a while as just tying it over the previous one got in the way of my sight. It was like looking through a thick haze, I couldn't see anything. I finally settled with the original bandage how it had been before and the second one resting on my forehead, going over my ears and tying at the base of my head under my hair. This was much better, with two layers I could still hear everything but it was all softer, muffled and not as sharp as before, much more soothing for my brain. With that problem sorted I started walking into the village, much happier than before.

Looking around, it looked like quite a large village, it was really bordering on being a town. Several people had stalls out and were hawking their wares, making everything seem very lively and me glad that I'd tied another layer over my ears. As I browsed several of the stalls, I noticed all the wary or frightened looks that I was getting. This disheartened me for a moment (I already felt self conscious about my scars) then I remembered what I had looked like when I looked into the pool and understood completely, my overall appearance was frightening and I was also a stranger. Plus, seeing someone with her eyes blindfolded and browsing would be pretty weird. Smirking a little, I noticed a book shop and somehow found myself standing inside it. Yeah, me and books – a bit weird. I looked around for a bit before noticing a book all about the human body. Flipping through it I found loads of information about the things that I could actually now see the human body doing, it also had an interesting section on pressure points and acupuncture. Taking this to the counter, I bought it, ignoring the confused look shot to me by the man behind it. Placing the money in my bag, I bought a pasty from the bakery and sat on a bench outside a shop, eating and reading the book I had just bought.

I was searching through my pack for the drink when I noticed the sound of the village change. There was a pocket of subdued sound moving down the street towards where I was seated. It was an area where it sounded like people were doing things nervously, as if scared. There was also the sound of snarling and marching feet. Curious, I hurriedly finished my food and put away my things, hoisting the bag onto my back and stood facing the sound, trying to find out why the happy sounds of the village were being violated.

It took a while for the disturbance to get closer (I still wasn't that comfortable with the change in my hearing) and when it did I was slightly shocked. There were four people dressed in white sailors clothing, wearing hats with 'Marine' written on them. They were following a lanky guy in a violet uniform with blond hair in the shape of an oval; to say he looked strange was an understatement. The thing that had me in shock was that the idiot had a very angry looking wolf on a lead in front of him, and was letting it snap at anyone that was too close.

_What is wrong with this guy?_

As I looked at him, I noticed that the villagers' reaction to this was to avert their eyes and ignore him. From this, and the fact that Mihawk had told me the Marines were like the police, I figured the odd looking dude was an important figure. Shaking my head at the idiocy I was seeing, I turned to find somewhere to stay for the night. That was when I saw a little kid, she couldn't have been older than eight, chasing after a ball that was rolling into the path of the wolf.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had run over to the girl and covered her with my body, my back facing the animal. I then heard some rapid footsteps followed by a cutting sound that reminded me of the wounds I had received. As there was then a yelp of pain from behind, I turned to see a man with green hair standing there with a katana out, and in front of him was the wolf, bleeding. As soon as the guy in violet noticed his dangerous pet was dead, he threw a fit.

"HOW DARE YOU KILL MY PET! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM? I'M MARINE LIEUTENANT MORGAN'S SON. I CAN HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR THIS. MARINES! ARREST THIS MAN!"

I then proceeded to just sit there as the island's form of protection arrested a man for saving someone's life. I couldn't believe it, how could someone this thick and power hungry have the power to do this, it's just ridiculous. I found myself on my feet walking slowly towards him, my fists clenched and glaring at him, forgetting that he wouldn't be able to see my eyes due to the bandages. He noticed me walking towards him and blanched a bit (My aura had probably gotten pretty dark).

"O-oy I wouldn't walk in this direction cripple. You mi-"

I am sorry to say that he couldn't continue as my temper snapped when he called me cripple, causing me to punch him in the face.

_Heck, who am I kidding, I enjoyed it, not sorry at ALL, creepy bastard. Who goes around with a dangerous animal and then starts to threaten a seemingly blind person?_

My eyes picked up some sort of signal and my body moved without me completely understanding why. I quickly realised it had been to avoid the marine who had swung a fist at me. As he came towards me again, I reacted without thinking and disabled both of his arms, in the same way as I had with Mihawk, jabbing my tensed fingers into the respective spots in his shoulders. The marine just stood there with a gormless look on his face, that was when my brain caught up with my body.

_Nonononononononononono what the HELL did I just do? I just attacked a Marine! What is wrong with me? Great, first day on my own and I'm going to get arrested. Hmph, at least it was for a good reason._

Unsurprisingly, the freak in violet started screaming again and ordered me to be arrested as well. I didn't fight back, knowing it would have only made it worse. We then proceeded to walk to the massive marine base. During the walk, I took the opportunity to examine my fellow captive. Noticeably, he had cropped green hair which I took to be dyed. He was wearing a white shirt tucked under a green haramaki with black trousers tucked into black boots. He also had a black bandana wrapped around his left arm, three earrings on his left ear and three katana on his right hip. As I watched, I was struck by the similarity between the way he and Mihawk moved.

_Hmm, maybe it's because they're both swordsmen? I noticed that the people in the village moved differently to the marines as well. Maybe it's because they had been trained to fight?_

As we plodded along, I noticed that the Marine whose arms I had disabled was glaring at me every so often, he was also rubbing his arms. I guess I had only cramped the muscles temporarily when I had attacked him. I growled at him silently before looking back to the front, I noticed then that we had nearly arrived at the Marine base.

_How did I not notice_ _ that _ _?_

It was a large compound with a huge tower like structure at the back of it, this tower also happened to have the word 'MARINE' printed in massive letters on it.

_You should be able to see this from_ _ miles _ _away. Hah, I guess having super eyesight doesn't make me that observant._


	7. Chapter 7

Everything sort of went by in a blur, I think that I was in shock over getting arrested for the first time, never mind that it had been in a different world.

As soon as we entered the compound, the crazy guy ordered posts to be set up and the captives tied to them. Once we were secured, he started to gloat.

"Hahahaha this is your punishment, you brought it onto yourself. I can't believe that you would act against me, the son of marine lieutenant Morgan, Helmeppo! Roronoa Zoro, the famous pirate hunter, you don't look so tough right now now do you? That's what you get for killing my pet! Hmmmmm. And you, blind girl, how dare you hit me! Not even my father has hit me! As punishment I think I shall have you both executed ... actually wait, I have a better idea. If you survive here for a month without food then I will let you go. Aww I am too generous! Oh, and seeing as you are stuck here, you won't need these eh pirate hunter?"

With that, Helmeppo reached over to Zoro for his three katana. As soon as his fingers touched them though, Zoro spoke.

"I will be expecting those back."

The sinister way in which he said that made me shiver and also made Helmeppo go white and hesitate a little before taking them.

_Woah. That is one scary guy. I bet he has anger management issues._

Helmeppo then turned and walked off cackling, I think he was trying to reassert himself after being frightened witless by Zoro. The Marines also turned and left with him, I guess it would have been pointless to guard a couple of people who were tied up. We were both tied against posts that were next to each other and had a 'T' shape, our arms were tied out along the sides. As soon as they left, I slumped.

_What am I meant to do now? He says survive for a month, I don't think I can do that if we don't get any food. I'm already hungry! AWWWW DAMMIT! Why did I have to go and lose my temper? That stupid son of a stupid important guy abusing his stupid connections to be a stupid and endanger people with a stupid pet t-_

"Oi"

Still depressed, I slowly lifted my head and looked to the left at Zoro. He had a puzzled look on his face.

"How did you do that?"

_Err what? Does he even understand how vague a question that is?_

I tilted my head at him in question.

"How did you manage to attack and avoid that Marine. Aren't you blind?"

Understanding what he was going on about now, I pondered over how I was going to answer him. In the end I just decided to look at him. It took a while, but I managed to lift the bandage off of one eye by rubbing my head against my shoulder. When I turned back to look at him, I saw that he was looking at me a bit worriedly and I chuckled to myself, understanding that it would have looked extremely weird. When he saw me looking at him though, he frowned at me. This made me frown at him in return. I didn't understand why my answer would elicit that response.

"So you are blind. Then how did you do it?"

Confused by his answer, I frowned further and shook my head at him, glaring. I tried mouthing my answer at him in the hopes that he could lip read.

" _I can see"_

It took a moronic amount of repetitions with me exaggerating the three words before he finally understood what I said. But his reply? A delayed, "Oh"

_Oh? OH? I know there probably isn't much to say after that, but just a disinterested_ _ OH _ _? Plus it took such a long time for him to get what I said, he is an idiot._

I continued glaring at him with my freed eye. After a while I realised I'd had my eye uncovered for a bit too long, the headache was started to come back. Cue odd head shuffle to bring the bandage back down before facing in front of me.

_Okay, it's only been like ten minutes and I am already BORED! GARGHGHGHG, I do_ _ not _ _deal well with boredom. I would start a conversation, but idiot over there can't lip read for his life and I doubt that he's going to try having a one sided conversation. Ohmygod, I just realised, we're going to have to SLEEP like this! AWwwwww that's going to be so UNCOMFY._

After a moment of silence, a snore alerted me to the fact that my companion had actually managed to fall asleep. Stood up. In this stupid position. The amount of hatred I had for someone had never been so high. After fuming for a bit, I decided to emulate him, it took a while, but I also managed to fall asleep.

When I woke up, it looked to be nearly dawn and it was COLD. I was still wearing the same things I had been attacked in, a t-shirt and pair of jeans with trainers; with my arms out to the side I couldn't help retain any heat and so just stood there shivering, miserable and hungry. Too lazy and depressed to lift my head, I used my hearing to see if there was anything interesting happening. Due to the ungodly hour, there wasn't much to hear, only a few fishermen getting ready in the harbour and Zoro's breathing.

I had been spacing out for a couple of hours when I noticed Zoro's breathing pattern change. As I lifted my head to look at him, I noticed that it was finally day. I could actually feel the sun warming me up, I decided it was one of the best feelings in the whole world at the moment, second to not being hungry. Zoro had noticed me turn to look at him and nodded to me, I returned the gesture then grimaced and let my head flop forwards before looking up again and grinning ruefully at him. In turn, he snorted at me, "Yeah it is pretty boring." Hearing a certain obnoxious guy's voice coming in this direction, I looked past Zoro towards the gate. Feeling my attention move away from him, he frowned in confusion, also turning to look at the gate before looking back at me.

_I am not going to look beaten in front of that sissy._

Straightening myself from the half slump I had adopted for sleep, I looked directly ahead of me. This was when Helmeppo appeared at the gate and Zoro's eyes flicked to me in surprise before he too took a defiant stance. We both ignored him as he sauntered over to us with his contingent of Marines behind him. Inevitably, it was when he was stood directly in front of us that my stomach decided to be super unhelpful and make the loudest noise it could. I blushed furiously and scowled. Zoro grinned then composed his face into a scowl. Helmeppo leered at me.

"I had just come out to see how my favourite two captives were handling their tasks, but it seems like one of you is hungry already hmmm?"

He walked closer, and put his face WAY too close to mine before whispering in my ear (though it sounded like he was yelling).

"Well I could bring something small out ... if you did me a favour..."

I didn't even think about it, my leg just acted on its own. Next thing I know Helmeppo is rolling on the floor in agony, the Marines looked horrified and Zoro was laughing his brains off. Shooting angry looks at me, the Marines picked the creep up and left, moving back towards the huge tower. With my brain re-inhabiting my body, I turned to look at Zoro who had a slight grin on his face while mine was growing steadily more and more horrified. I just gave up and let my head flop back, hitting the post.

"Violent girl."

I turned my head at him. He just kept grinning. I shook my head and leant back again, watching the sky.

Over the next three days the routine repeated itself. Zoro and I would spend most of our time sleeping and Helmeppo would come visit in the mornings. He would do something stupid and I would inevitably lose control and injure him in some way. For some reason he couldn't think to stand out of my range. By the end of the fourth day, both of our stomachs had given up on making noises, we were that hungry. We had done ok for water as it had rained during the third day (let me tell you, standing in wet clothes for a day = urrgghh).

At the beginning of the fifth day, I heard some footsteps from behind the wall in front of us. I had been listening for long enough to know that none of the Marines' patrols went around that side and that villagers never came up, so obviously I was interested, anything to alleviate the boredom really. From behind the wall I could hear someone talking about there being a monster in this courtyard and that they wanted to see. Assuming they were talking about Zoro I got his attention by stomping on the floor. He looked up and arched an eyebrow at me, I replied by moving my head to the wall, sort of pointing at it. As he turned to look at it, two heads popped up over the wall. As they just perched there staring, both of us got annoyed and started scowling. This caused one of them to fall off, much to my amusement, the other guy stayed there, just watching us from under his hat, as the one with pink hair climbed back up again.

"Hey you."

We all started, not really expecting Zoro to speak, though the one with pink hair seemed terrified as well for some reason.

"Could you please come over here and untie us? We've been tied up for five days and we're exhausted."

I was happy that he'd included me in his escape attempt, though I doubt some random strangers were going to untie people the Marines had arrested, they would get into trouble as well. I turned to Zoro in an attempt to smile my gratitude but the expression sort of withered. I 'think' Zoro was trying to smile pleadingly at them, it looked like he had gone crazy and wanted to kill someone instead.

_Err, he needs to work on that. No one's going to come near him and he's going to scare children._

"Oh look, he's smiling."

This had come from the one wearing a straw hat.

_Ok ... there's something wrong with that guy_

Zoro continued to try and convince them to let us out.

"I can repay you, I'll hunt down some fugitives and give you their bounty. I'm not lying, I'll keep my word."

He still had that super creepy grin on his face. It didn't seem to have an effect on the hat guy, but the one with the pink hair was freaking out. He was trying to convince his partner not to do it as he thought that as soon as Zoro was free he would kill them.

_Hmph, well that's a bit rude, he doesn't even know what Zoro is like and is just making assumptions._

Just then, a small kid popped up at the wall alongside the two who were still arguing. They stopped for a moment to stare at her and she replied by shushing them before jumping over the wall and walking over to us. As soon as she came over the wall I realised that it was the kid we had gotten arrested for protecting.

_I wonder why she's here. She should leave soon, it's nearly time for Stupid to come and taunt us._

She stopped in front of me and opened the package that she was carrying, I saw that there were two rice balls there. Picking one up, she stood on tip toe and offered it to me.

"Uhm, Nee-chan, I made a rice ball for you and Nii-chan. You haven't eaten for a long time right?"

I smiled at her in thanks and ate what was being offered to me.

_OHMYGODWHATTHEHELLISTHIS?_

The rice ball was sickeningly sweet, but I kept my face neutral as I chewed it and then smiled again, nodding at her. I could feel it as it hit my empty stomach. She smiled back at me and then walked over to Zoro to offer him the other one.

"Go away! I'm not hungry!"

Surprised at his reaction and not believing him at all, I turned and glared at him.

"But this is the first time I made rice balls an-"

"I don't want it. Leave me. I'll kill you if you don't go!"

_What the hell is wrong with you Zoro?_

I was just about to stretch to the side to try and kick him, even though he was too far away, when I heard Helmeppo arrive.

_Oh that's just great._


	8. Chapter 8

I looked past Zoro and directed my glare towards Helmeppo instead. I just knew that the idiot would follow his pattern and do something that would either annoy me or make me angry.

"Now now Roronoa, it's not nice to pick on little kids."

At the sound of his grating voice, everyone else turned to look at him as well. After a brief moment of silence, I heard the straw hat guy say, "Oh, some weirdo came" as if he was just commenting on the fact that grass is green. I quickly turned my head and grinned at him before turning back and resuming my glare. That comment had made my day, it was just the way he said it and the fact that I completely agreed. Helmeppo's expression when he heard it was just an added bonus.

As we watched, Helmeppo sauntered over, going over his usual spiel all the while. It consisted of a multitude of reminders about how we would fail the task and get executed, and also several mentions about his dad. He was yet again dressed in the horrid violet suit.

We could all tell the moment he saw the girl was holding food. His face changed to a sneering expression, or that's what I think he was going for. It looked like he had walked into a sheet of glass.

"Well hello little girl. That rice ball looks pretty tasty ... BLERGH!"

I sniggered silently to myself. He had walked up to her, grabbed the rice ball and taken a huge bite. I knew from my own piece that they were extremely sweet, seeing things going wrong for Helmeppo cheered me up immensely.

"HORRIBLE! You put too much sugar into it. Rice balls are meant to be savoury!"

The girl's lip started to quiver, she had already looked depressed when the rice ball was stolen, but now looked like she would start to cry any second.

"B-but I thought they'd taste b-better sweet..."

As Helmeppo finished spitting everything from his mouth onto the floor like a beast, he threw the rest of it onto the ground and started stomping it into the dirt. When he finished he looked up, and on seeing the girl's crying face, smiled. If it were possible for me to get any angrier, I would be in danger of turning green.

"Don't worry! The ants will eat it up."

_How DARE he say that with a stupid happy face! He's inhuman, how could he laugh after seeing a crying kid's face? The heartless, selfish bastard. I understand him eating it in front of us for a taunt, but doing that just because he didn't like the taste? What a great way to build up a child's self esteem, he's meant to be a role model isn't he? HAH, I forgot, it's his dad that's the Marine, not him. Even Zor...OH!_ _ That's _ _what he was trying to do! Daaawwww, Zoro has a sweet side, trying to protect the kid from Stupid._

Reaching the end of my ramblings, I turned and stopped releasing a killer aura at Helmeppo, instead I smiled knowingly at Zoro who could feel the change in my mood and looked at me. On seeing my smile though, he looked back at Helmeppo, very pointedly not looking at me.

_Awwww, look who's trying to be all gruff and stuff._

During my mini ramblings, Helmeppo had continued on with being an idiot. I'm sure he mentioned his father a couple of times. My attention was brought back to what was in front of me when I heard him threaten the kid.

"You know how scary my dad can be, right? You would've gotten the death penalty if you were a grown up. Oi, throw this brat out."

There was a pause where everyone looked at him, all of us thinking 'Are you serious?'. He walked closer to the Marine he had addressed.

_Any closer and they'd be kissing._

"I'm telling you to throw her outta here! Are you trying to disobey me? I'M TELLING MY DAD!"

With that said, the Marine let out a quiet "Ay-aye sir" and picked up the kid. I could do nothing but stand there and watch in horror as he pitched her over the wall, actually throwing her out. I thought he had just said that as an expression, I didn't realise that he would mean it literally! As I saw her go sailing over the wall, my stomach dropped, she had flipped around and looked like she would fall on her head. Just before she fall past my line of sight though, I saw the straw hat kid jump up and catch her, bringing my blood pressure down and making me sigh in relief.

I was too busy spacing out, so relieved that the girl would be alright, to realise that Helmeppo had actually finished and left for the tower already. Looking up, I could see that the straw hat kid was now standing in front of Zoro and that they were staring at each other.

"You still haven't left yet? Leave now, or else he'll go tell his dad about you."

Zoro said this with a bit of a smirk on his face. There was another short period of silence where the straw hat kid looked to be thinking this over. He smiled.

"Really? I'm looking for someone to join my pirate crew."

Now that perked my interest. I looked closer at him, he didn't look anything special. He was wearing blue shorts that stopped just at his knees, a red vest that was unbuttoned, sandals and that straw hat with a red ribbon running around it, he also had a scar under his left eye.

_Is he really a pirate? That smile, and his past comments ... from what I've seen, he doesn't really act or look like a pirate. Hmm, I could just be stereotyping though. The only other pirate I met in this world was one that worked for the Marines though, so I shouldn't really compare him to Mihawk._

"Pirate? Heh..! So you just gave up on life and became a crook huh?"

_I agree with Zoro, buuutt ... can this kid really be a pirate? He's not even a bit intimidating, and he's the captain?_

"It's my dream! There's nothing wrong with being a pirate!"

Zoro and I exchanged a quick glance.

_Err ... I think this kid might be a bit slow. Pirates are_ _ bad _ _... they loot and kill people for no other reason than that they can._

I could see Zoro thinking this over. I doubt that he had anything to say to that, it was just such an odd statement, I had no idea what I would have said either. He settled for changing the subject instead.

"..Hm? Don't tell me you're going to set us free and force us to join you."

"I haven't made up my mind yet since everyone thinks you're a bad guy and I think that she's a bit too grumpy."

At that comment my mouth fell open. Catching myself, I closed my mouth and frowned at him.

_I am NOT GRUMPY! GRRRrrrr, he's been with us for ten minutes and Stupid was here for all of that! I dare HIM to spend five days tied to a post being taunted by a guy with an IQ of under 60, I bet he'd be annoyed too. Hey wait, why does he want_ _ me _ _in his pirate crew? Do I really look like a raping and pillaging type of gal? ... Stupid scars, stupid bandage, stupid Helmeppo ..._

Seeing movement at the corner of my eyes, I turned to see Zoro smiling. I narrowed my eyes at him, I just knew he was smiling at the comment about me. Bastard.

"A bad guy huh? I'll never join you, I have something that I need to take care of. I can survive for a month even without your help, that bastard kid promised to release us after that. Not too sure about violent girl there though."

_(Cue glare at the bastard)_

"I'm going to do everything I can to stay alive and fulfil my dreams!"

Straw hat looked at Zoro, amazed.

"Really? If I were you I think I'd starve to death in a week!"

_I completely agree with that statement, Zoro the crazy can say whatever he wants but I don't think it's possible to not eat for a month with water only when it rains._

"That's where we differ, go find someone else to join you."

Straw hat nodded at him and turned to face me, tilting his head in question, a blinding smile on his face. Knowing what the question was, I kept on frowning and shook a negative at him, I was annoyed about his grumpy comment. Having received answers from both of us, he turned to walk away but was stopped by Zoro.

"Hold on. That ... Can you pick it up for me?"

We looked to what he was gesturing at, it was the muddy rice ball Helmeppo had stomped into the ground. Straw hat went over and picked it up, looking at it in distaste. It didn't look like food anymore.

"You want to eat this? But the rice ball is all muddy. Well I guess you can't be picky about food when you're hungry...Do you want to kill yourself?"

"Shut up. Just give it to me."

Watching Zoro eat the rice ball made me cringe, it was more mud than rice and it hadn't tasted too good to begin with. Watching him eat made me hungry, and my reawakened stomach declared this to the world, letting out an embarrassingly loud rumble. Thankfully, Zoro started to talk again after having a coughing fit, so straw hat couldn't comment.

"Tell that little girl *cough cough* tell her *cough* 'The rice ball tasted very good. Thank you very much.' "

We both grinned at Zoro while he tried to swallow whatever had gotten stuck in his throat. As the guy wandered off, I continued smirking at Zoro, with him pointedly ignoring me. After a while I started to giggle silently, amused with Zoro's reaction to the fact that I had seen him being nice for the kid, that there was something under his tough guy persona.

"I was just hungry all right? And it's polite to thank people for food."

My giggles turned into full blown silent laughter. He just couldn't admit he had done it for the kid. Sure I agree that he had been hungry, but I seriously doubt he had done it solely for that reason. Plus I could see that his cheeks were slightly red.

The next couple of hours were spent in silence. Silence on Zoro's part because he was still ignoring me, silence on my part because I couldn't make a sound, though I did keep bursting into giggles as I remembered Zoro's actions, he was so insecure about it!

I was daydreaming a bit, wondering over what the commotion was all about in the Marine tower. I could hear some shouting but couldn't really make out any words, there were too many people talking. After a while I heard someone come up to the wall in front of us again, I looked up just in time to see the straw hat kid jump over it and walk up to us. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as to why he was here again after we had already said no to his offer.

"It's you again? We told you that we don't want to be pirates."

He just ignored him and bulled ahead, "Yo. I'm Luffy, if I loosen up the ropes, then you're gonna join me, okay?"

"We've already told you! I have things that I need to do. Besides, we're not going to be bad guys like a pirate."

I nodded in agreement, a bit curious as to what Zoro 'needed to do' though.

"What's the problem, everyone thinks you're a bad guy already, and she looks like a bad guy."

_GRRRRRrr THAT'S IT! When I get out I am SO going to pummel him to death. Just because I have a ridiculous amount of scars he goes and makes those assumptions ..._

"I don't care what they say about me. I haven't regretted anything that I've done in the past and that will be the same for the future as well. I won't become a pirate!"

I looked to Luffy to gauge his reaction only to find it stubbornly set.

"I don't care! You're going to join me!"

"DON'T DECIDE FOR YOURSELF!"

_What did I just see? I swear Zoro's teeth were jagged just then...That aside though, this situation is pretty funny. Looks like Luffy doesn't know the meaning of no. Still annoyed with him though -.-_

"Hey, I heard that you use katana, is that right? Where is it?"

"That bastard's kid took it. It's something that I treasure almost as much as my life."

_Hmm, I didn't know he was that attached to his katana._

"Okay! I'm gonna go to where the bastard kid is and get your katana back. But if you want me to return it to you, you'll have to join me!"

With that said, Luffy started laughing and I joined in. After yelling at Luffy, "THAT'S DIRTY", Zoro alternated between glaring at Luffy and me for laughing. As he calmed down, Luffy walked over so that he now stood in front of me.

After a moment of just standing there staring he asked, "Did they take any of your stuff?" I took a second to appreciate the fact that they had just dumped my bag next to the pole that I was tied to. Grinning, I shook my head. This caused him to pout at me, obviously because he couldn't blackmail me into joining now. He stood there for a few seconds more, before striking a fist into the flat of his palm as an idea came to him, putting on that wide grin of his again.

"Then I won't untie you until you say you'll join."

My mouth dropped open yet again. Quickly shutting it I bared my teeth at him in annoyance. Glancing to the side at a movement from Zoro, I saw him roll his eyes at me before nodding slightly. Understanding what he was saying, I started grinning with my teeth bared before shaking my head 'no'.

"Awwww Zoro no fair, that's cheating...Okay, fine. I'll get Zoro's katana and then you can both join! YAY, TWO NEW NAKAMA!"

With that said, he started running towards the tower. As soon as he was out of eyesight, I turned my head very slowly to face Zoro, my lips pressed into a thin line. After one look at my face, Zoro started laughing.

"HAHAhahahahaha...aww...sorry, I tried, payback hurts though doesn't it? Serves you right for laughing... Maybe he'll forget when he unties me?"

I could see that he was still holding back chuckles, as I was annoyed at him now, our roles reversed and I ignored him for the time being.

_What is wrong with that kid? Just deciding things for other people. It doesn't ma-_

I lost my train of thought as a tremendous crash came from the Marine tower followed by a bellow of anger.

_What the hell...I've only known him for less than half an hour, but I'd bet the money in the pouch that Luffy is the one causing all the trouble._

As I couldn't see anything different about the tower, I looked back to Zoro and saw that the pink haired kid had come back and was now trying to untie one of Zoro's arms.

_Woah, I need to pay more attention to what my ears are picking up and stop listening selectively._

I had found out (over the boring days attached to the pole) that whenever I focused on a sound, all other sounds would be ignored, but that I would be able to hear whatever I was focusing on really clearly. It had been a good way to keep myself amused, listening in to conversations and ignoring all the random noises from the village. Speaking of not listening, I turned my attention back to the pink haired kid.

"WHAT? Luffy-san is inside the base? He's too hot-headed..."

"Yeah you're right...Oi! If you help me the Marines will kill you!"

_Zoro...you can be so slow..._

"You two shouldn't have been arrested! I can't stand those kinds of Marines. I'm going to become a real Marine! Just like the way Luffy-san is determined to be the Pirate King!"

"WHAT? P-pirate King? You are joking right?"

"Hehehe, I was a bit shocked when I first heard him say it. But he's serious!"

Looking back and forth between the two, I tried to figure out why Luffy wanting to be a Pirate King was such a big deal. I remembered Mihawk saying something about it, but we did talk about a LOT of stuff. There was something about one treasure? As I puzzled this over, the kid continued with trying to free Zoro. That is, until he was shot.


	9. Chapter 9

"AAAAAAAAAAhh! I've been shot! Bleeding! I'm bleeding! I'm gonna dieeeee!"

Zoro and I sweat dropped at his reaction as he rolled around on the floor. We could see that he had been shot quite high up in his left shoulder. It was understandable for him to freak out a little, I mean I would if I got shot, but he was definitely in no danger of dying. My attention was suddenly diverted to the tower though, as I heard a large troop of feet start up inside. Zoro had caught sight of my head movement and seemed to understand what was happening instantly. The kid calmed down a little and started to sit up.

"Are you alright? I think you should run, they're almost here."

"No!..I've...got to free you...as soon as possible."

_That's really nice of him, but at this rate the Marines might kill him. I had no idea they would act that harshly against him though, aren't Marines meant to be the good guys? I mean, Mihawk was, and he worked for them...I bet Luffy got them angry..._

" You don't need to worry about us. We can stand this for a month just hurry and lea-"

"THEY WON'T SET YOU FREE! They're going to execute you in three days!"

_ WHAT _ _? Never mind that I wouldn't have been able to survive this for a month, now he tells me that they were going to kill us anyway? GARARRGHGHGH, HELMEPPO YOU ARE SO_ _ DEAD _ _!_

"He never intended to keep his promise. That's why Luffy-san punched him on your behalf. He was just toying with you!"

We looked at him for a moment, stunned about what we had just heard.

"W-what did you just say?"

_Huh...so I'm not the only one who punches Marines when they're angry. It was nice of him to do that for us though._

"The Navy will never let the three of you off. Please! After I set you free, please help rescue Luffy-san! I won't force you to become pirates, but he is the one who saved me. Luffy-san is very strong. If you join forces then you will definitely be able to escape this town!"

As soon as his speech was over, I saw that the Marines had finally left the tower and were running towards us.

_Oh this is just great! Why couldn't he have been untying us as he spoke?_

"That's enough! The three of you have betrayed Lieutenant Morgan. DIE!"

_CRAP!_

As the Marines arranged themselves so that they all had clear shots, I looked at my companions and saw that their faces represented my thoughts exactly. That was when the booming voice I had heard earlier was matched to a man who was now walking towards us, he looked odd.

"Surround the base! Don't let the guy with the straw hat escape!"

_Yeah I knew it, Luffy didn't look like the type of guy to do anything quietly._

"How interesting...were the four of you trying to cause a political upheaval?"

_What the – yes...yes that was EXACTLY what we were going for whilst tied to a pole..._

As he came closer, I was able to confirm that my eyes hadn't gone AWOL on me and that I really was seeing a man who had a giant axe for a hand and a steel plated jaw. He was wearing dark clothing and boots with a white Marine coat that was undone, flapping behind him like a cape. The only resemblance he had to the Stupid was that he was male and had blond hair.

"Roronoa Zoro, I've heard your name before, but don't underestimate me! When compared to my great strength, you're all just garbage! READY!"

All I could do was look at the guns pointed in our direction. I couldn't quite believe that all this was happening. I had no idea what my feelings were doing, I felt weirdly calm. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to die, I just couldn't work up a strong reaction to it, I think I was still trying to get over the fact that I was in a different world.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

I heard a crash from the Marine tower just as Morgan shouted "FIRE". As I looked up reflexively at the loud noises, I saw Luffy come flying in this direction before landing to our side, directly in front of the Marines who had just let off a volley of bullets. My hyped up eyes allowed me to see, track and identify the features of each bullet as they came hurtling towards us, somehow also allowing me to instantly know the trajectory of each bullet. Luffy had managed to stand in the exact spot where they would all hit. As soon as I understood this, the bullets hit him.

To say that I was shocked a random kid/pirate had done this for people he had only just met would have been a severe understatement. The only person on the field who didn't look shocked seemed to be Morgan who, for some reason, looked annoyed.

_W-why?..He-th-bullets...died for us?_

I was proved wrong though as the bullets then proceeded to bounce back from him, instead of going through him.

_Okay that's it, I give up on this world with the evil marines with odd limb replacements and the pirates on the same side as said marines along with the RANDOM PIRATE KID THAT CAN BOUNCE BACK BULLETS!_

As the marines ducked the rebounding bullets, I finished freaking out about my ridiculous luck and ignored the strange wounded child on the floor to stare at Luffy.

"WHAT KIND OF HUMAN ARE YOU?"

There was a pause where he slowly turned back to face us whilst Zoro and I waited for the answer.

"Hehe, the one who will become the Pirate King!"

The both of us sweat dropped at that reply.

_Yeah, that wasn't the type of answer we were going for there..._

Ignoring the marines who were still falling over each other in shock, Luffy walked over to Zoro and held out the three katana that I saw him wearing back before we were tied to the posts.

"Look, which one is your treasured katana? I couldn't figure it out so I brought all three of them."

"All three belong to me, I use santoryu*"

As Zoro replied, I couldn't help but feel a bit worried. His face was void of all expression and he had answered in a monotone.

_I think Luffy broke him...All this random and stress mustn't be good for his poor ickle brain._

Quickly stifling a shudder from a sudden bout of killing intent aimed at me from said man ( _THE HELL?! How did he know I insulted him?_ ) We all turned back to the marines as they seemed to have finally sorted themselves out and were once again pointing lethal weapons in our direction.

"Resisting the Navy here will make you an outlaw. Do you really want to die?"

Zoro contemplated this for a second before turning back to Luffy. It looked like he had made a decision.

_Does he not have a single normal expression? I almost prefer that creepy blank face to the sadistic looking grin he has on now._

"You must be some sort of demon. Fine, I've decided. Instead of dying here I will join you to fulfil my dream and will also become a pirate!"

I decided to have a brief mental breakdown.

_NOOOOO ZOROOOO! What have you_ _ done _ _?! We were meant to be a united stand! Now who's going to help me say no to the ridiculously cute puppy dog face that I_ _ know _ _the idiot is capable of pulling? I thought that you were actually somewhat sane here but NO. For some reason everyone I've met since getting to this world is_ _ INSANE!  _ _You're not evil, you can't be a pirate, I've decided so there..._

_..._

_...I miss my vvvooooiiiicccce. RANTS DON'T WORK WHEN YOU'RE MUTE!_

I hung my head and fumed for a while, ignoring Luffy who was trying to untie Zoro and failing miserably. Hearing someone start to speak, I looked up and saw that it was Helmeppo's dad, he was muttering to his subordinates.

"That rascal isn't normal; he must have eaten one of the 'Devil Fruits'!"

This sparked up a round of murmurs throughout the marine group.

"He ate the ocean's secret treasure?" "Then he has a special ability?" "What the hell is that?" "So that's how he did it." "I don't believe it" "How are we meant to fight that?" "We should use our swords!" "You really think that'll work?" "That doesn't make sense."

As the marines started to psyche themselves out, the kid on the ground (whose name I still didn't know) managed to wake himself up out of the odd coma type thing he had been in and joined Luffy in the untying of the poor people tied to the poles, although he was a bit frantic and didn't actually seem to be getting anywhere. Unfortunately this is obviously when the marines turned their brains back on and realised that people were setting their prisoners free right in front of them.

Cue rabid screaming and stampeding of men in our general direction.

As I cringed from the sudden loud influx of noise (extremely happy about my double layer of insulation on my ears) both Luffy and the kid managed to free one of our arms each, sadly that was all they managed to untie due to a couple of reasons.

1) Luffy was busy happily holding up the untied piece of rope for Zoro to look at, not even starting to help untie any more of the ropes. Zoro wasn't very happy.

2) The kid had started to freak out even more than he had been as he saw the marines rushing towards us with swords drawn.

Thankfully Zoro retained enough brain function under the pressure and yelled at Luffy to give him his swords while I contorted my arm and tried to reach the small of my back for the dagger that I had hidden there.

In a rush of movement I had only seen so far with Mihawk, Zoro cut himself loose, grabbed a sword in both hands and his mouth, then proceeded to block all the swords wielded by the marines with his back facing them.

_That...was badass...and a totally weird way to fight._

"You better not move. If you do - then I'll kill you."

While everyone freaked out or grinned (Luffy) I pouted and shifted my feet, still standing in front of the pink haired kid. In the same amount of time it took Zoro to pull off his epic badassery, all I had managed to do was cut myself free and get into a sort of relaxed ready stance in front of the kid with my knife held out to the front. Even though I hadn't actually moved that far or done anything impressive, it had been pretty speedy of me. Scrap that. I was much faster than I had been before, nothing up to Zoro and nowhere near Mihawk's speed but still pretty speedy. It hadn't been as awesome as what Zoro did, but I was still feeling a tad bit happy with myself.

Just before the pause become too long and just as the marines looked like they would actually try to do something now, Zoro started to speak.

"After this incident, I'm sure to become a fugitive now so I might as well become a pirate, but that's okay...I still have my own goals! I'm going to become the world's greatest swordsman. I don't care if my name is clean or not anymore. As long as it's known worldwide, then I've decided that it doesn't matter if it's as a good guy or a bad guy. But if you do anything that gets in the way of my goal, then I'll kill you, understand?"

Strangely enough, instead of being even slightly apprehensive, Luffy started laughing.

"Shishishishi! Good! If you're going to be a crew member of the Pirate King, then if you can't even accomplish something that small then I would be very embarrassed."

This reply seemed to please Zoro.

"Heh. Well said!"

_Death threats, crazy dreams and odd goals. Is this some sort of male thing? Or pirate thing? Or are people here just crazy?_

Morgan seemed to have had enough with all the wild exclamations and the inaction of his minions/subordinates.

"What are you guys just STANDING there for? Hurry up and finish them off!"

As everyone finished flinching at Stupid senior's obnoxiously loud voice we saw Luffy change his stance and swing one of his legs behind him. I could then see his muscles and tendons start to tense in an odd way. It looked like the pattern for him to kick his leg forwards, but had an odd...looseness to it?

"Zoro duck! Gomu gomu no MUCHI*"

And with that he did kick his leg forwards. It's just that it managed to stretch several meters and kick all the marines standing behind Zoro with enough force to send them all flying into the air and land at least ten meters away. Zoro then asked the question on everyone's mind and I for one was hoping for the answer that we were actually looking for this time.

"What are you?"

With a large grin on his face and his leg held off the ground still, he replied.

"I am ... a rubber man!"

_This world makes no sense._

* * *

Santoryu – three sword style

Gomu gomu no Muchi – rubber rubber whip


End file.
